Everything that spread far and wide across the vast, varied topography of Westeros like bee pollen is converging now. We knew this will be the season when loyalties get aligned, little chasms widen, common ground found against a common enemy, and blood proven thicker. The opening scene starts with gross Walder Frey suddenly looking like he’s developed a capacity for self-deprecatory humour. “Leave one wolf alive, and the sheep are never safe,” he announces to a room filled with “every Frey who means a damn thing” as the said Freys down their goblets. And that’s how winter came.

Bran and Meera finally get to the Wall, while at the Great Hall at Winterfell, Sansa gives Jon grief when it comes to the issue of throwing the Umbers and Karstarks out of their ancestral homes, arguing whether there shouldn’t be “punishment for treason and reward for loyalty.” In the shadows, Littlefinger’s smirk seems to be getting frozen on his face. Sansa and Jon have a little reconciliation, with Sansa dispensing some life lessons inveigled from her painfully close associations with grade-A a$$holes.

Meanwhile, Euron Greyjoy comes to King’s Landing with the Iron Fleet (“with a thousand ships and two good hands”), and urges Cersei to try murdering her brother ’cause it “feels wonderful”. And Daenerys is back at Dragonstone, feeling its sand under her fingers and walking through its halls, right when, elsewhere, Samwell Tarly, in between all the wading in shit and weighing hearts and rotting livers, discovers there’s a whole mountain of Dragonglass under Dany’s home. Sweet.

Why watch: We’ve all been a little uneasy about what’s brewing in Littlefinger’s head, but Sansa doesn’t seem like the willing puppet one would have initially thought her to be. “No need to seize the last word, Lord Baelish. I assume it was something clever,” Sansa tells him (zing) and, for once, the great whisperer keeps shut. Every moment with Lyanna Mormont is a one to watch. While Jon Snow gives the episode its #woke moment when says the North can’t be defended with only half the population fighting, Lady Mormont goes, “I don’t plan on knitting by the fire while men fight for me.”

What to skip: Did we really need Ed Sheeran singing in the forest like a little elf, did we? Arya’s genial encounter with a bunch of friendly soldiers from King’s Landing was subversive precisely because we’re so not used to the friendly passing around of rabbit meat. It was nice to see Arya laugh, but that’s a few minutes better diverted for more nefarious activities.

What we’re wondering: Will Sam’s letter to Jon take Jon to Dany? Soon? Is sweet ol’ Wun Wun now a White Walker? How bad is Jorah’s greyscale? Who is evil Euron going to kill/capture? What else did the Hound see in the fire, and what does it mean for him?